Shallow packing tray

ABSTRACT

A molded packing tray for apples and the like formed with a plurality of dished article receiving pockets. The pockets are dished with a relatively steeper curvature in one horizontal direction and a shallower curvature in another horizontal direction. The pockets are located so as to dispose the fruit stored therein in diagonally inclined rows with respect to the edges of the tray. Preferably the relatively steep curvature is formed on an axis which is inclined at an angle of 0* to 10* to the pitch center axis of the tray. This structure provides the maximum clearance between fruit arranged in adjacent rows to prevent bruising of the fruit resulting from contact between adjacent rows of fruit during shipping.

United States Patent 1191 Emery SHALLOW PACKING TRAY [76] Inventor: Roy W. Emery, 1 Donino Ct.,

Toronto, Ontario, Canada [22] Filed: June 25, 1973 21 Appl. No.2 373,168

[52] US. Cl. 217/265, 229/2.5 [51] Int. Cl... B6Sd 25/02, 365d 81/00, 365d 85/00 [58] Field of Search 217/26, 26.5, 27; 229/2.5,

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,843,496 7/1958 Altenburg 61 a1 229/2.5 3,245,570 4/1966 Friday 3,281,003 10/1966 Pesut, Jr. 217/26 FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS 644,783 7/1972 Canada.. 217/25 Primary ExaminerLeonard D. Christian Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Fetherstonhaugh & Co.

[57] ABSTRACT A molded packing tray for apples and the like formed with a plurality of dished article receiving pockets. The pockets are dished with a relatively steeper curvature in one horizontal direction and a shallower curvature in another horizontal direction. The pockets are located so as to dispose the fruit stored therein in diagonally inclined rows with respect to the edges of the tray. Preferably the relatively :steep curvature is formed on an axis which is inclined at an angle of 0 to 10 to the pitch center axis of the tray; This structure provides the maximum clearance between fruit arranged in adjacent rows to prevent bruising of the fruit resulting from contact between adjacent rows of fruit during shipping.

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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to trays molded from material such as wood pulp or plastics for the bulk packaging of rounded, easily damaged articles such as apples, in particular, it relates to the shallow pocket type of tray.

An example of a shallow pocket tray according to the prior art is disclosed in Williams U.S. Design Pat/No. DES 155,114 (1949). The essential function of the shallow pocket type tray is twofold: firstly,to support a given number of articles in a patterned horizontal arrangement above the tray and secondly, to engage in direct contact a similar arrangement of articles below the tray. The articles in any tray must support all articles and trays above. It is of critical importance to avoid direct article to article contact between articles in a given horizontal arrangement and also to avoid hard contacts between articles in one arrangement and articles in another arrangement which is disposed ei ther immediately above or immediately below. In the well-known trays of this kind the article receiving pockets are constructed so as to achieve a preferred direction in which the apple hasits axis of symmetry parallel to either the shorter or the longer side of the tray depending on the size of the apple. For example, a size I apple is positioned so that the stem is parallel to the longer side of the tray, while the size 125 apples are arranged with the stems parallel to the short side. Detailed research and the careful measurement of a large number of commercial specimens has shown that on the average asphericalapples such as the Golden Delicious or the Red Delicious when positioned in a tray in the said preferred direction will have direct contact with all neighbouring apples. This leads to substantial bruising of the apples during transport.

However, when apples are placed in this type of tray with the axis in a diagonal direction, the contact between apples in a tray is eliminated to a large extent. The existence of ridges, buckles and the general design of the receiving pocket in current trays does not allow the article to be placed in a diagonal configuration in the tray without developing hard point contacts in several places which would tend to damage the article.

In addition, some trays of this type in current use engage the apples below them in areas which generally cause a hard apple to apple contact with only the thickness of the tray separating an apple below from an apple above.

In other embodiments of this style of tray in current use an attempt is made to overcome the above deficiency by providing one or more flexible flattened areas which are to give a soft cushion like contact to the lower apple prior to the said hard article to article contact.

However, these flattened areas do not perform this function efficiently because the surface area is too small to yield in a cushion-like manner. The provisions for tray strength such as ridges, saddles and buckles found in the popular trays in use today restrict these flattened areas to a large extent.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is thus a primary object of the present invention to provide a new and improved form of packing tray which reduces damage and bruising of articles such as fruit to a minimum by solving the aforenoted problems.

Accordingly, it is another object of this invention to provide a tray which permits a substantially diagonal orientation of soft articles such as fruit in order to avoid direct contact between articles.

An additional object of this invention is to provide a tray which draws apart the contact points that an article above the tray and the corresponding article below the tray have with the tray. To accomplish this, it is a still further object of the present invention to provide a tray which makes first contact with an article below it in one or more flexible flattened areas of larger effective surface diameter than heretofore possible.

According to an embodiment. of this invention a molded packaging tray is formed with a plurality of downwardly dished article receiving pockets, each pocket being elongated and dished with a shallow curvature in a first horizontal direction and being shortened and dished with substantially more curvature in another horizontal direction transverse to said first horizontal direction, the said first mentioned direction being in a diagonal direction of thetray.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the description of a typical embodiment of the invention, together with the drawings wherein:

FIG. 1 is a partial plan view of four apples showing the interference areas that result from the conventional orientation of the apples in the tray.

FIG. 2 is a partial plan view of four apples in which the apples are oriented so that the apple axis is parallel to a diagonal pitch line.

FIG. 3 is a partial plan view of four apples in which the apples are oriented so that the apple axis is perpendicular to a diagonal pitch line.

FIG. 4 is an axial cross section of an average delicious type apple of the popular size 125.

FIG. Sis a topplan view of one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a fractional section along the cut line 6--6 FIG. 5 showing the essential features of the support area for an'article below the tray.

FIG. 7 is a composite view along the cut-line B-B FIG. 5 showing the nautre of the pockets and of the supports areas.

FIG. 8 is a diagonal section of two trays of FIG. 5 vertically superimposed as during transport and fully loaded to show the cushion-like spring action of the flattened areas.

FIG. 9 is a plan view illustrating a tray according to a further embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 10 is a sectional view taken along the line 10-10 of FIG.'9; and

FIG. 11 is a cross-sectional view illustrating the manner in which two trays of the type illustrated in FIGS. 5 and 6 of the drawings are loaded.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS With reference to FIG. 1 of the drawings, which illustrates the prior art in the arrangement of apples in a shallow pulp tray, the reference numeral 30 is applied to the outline of the average conventional Delicious" apple. Each of the apples 30 has a stem axis 32. A plurality of pockets are formed in the tray. Each pocket has a transverse axis 34 and a longitudinal axis 36. In the embodiment of the prior art illustreated in FIG. 1 of the drawings, the centers A and B of two adjacent pockets are disposed on a diagonally extending pitch center axis 38 which is inclined at an angle of about 50 to the transverse axis 34. As shown in FIG. 1 of the drawings, the average apple loaded in a conventional manner in a conventional tray will be in contact with all adjacent apples, with the result that in shipping and storage the apples will be bruised.

An embodiment of the present invention is illustrated in FIG. 2 of the drawings wherein the stem axes 32 are rotated from the position shown in FIG. 1 until they are diagonally aligned. In this position, the transverse axes 34 are angularly inclined at an angle of about with respect to the pitch center diagonal 38. As will be described hereinafter, the pockets are shaped so that the radius of curvature in the first or transverse axial direction 34 is smaller than the radius of curvature in the second or longitudinal axial direction 32. This provides a pocket which has a depression which conforms generally to the shape of an apple. The degree or extent of difference between the radii of curvature of the depression in the longitudinal and transverse directions would depend upon the type of apple or other product which is to be shipped and stored in the trays of the present invention.

FIGS. 1, 2 and 3 all illustrate the use of a standard pitch pattern of a size 125 tray bounded by the rectangle defined by the points D D D and D,.

It will be apparent from FIG. 2 of the drawings that the problem of spacing the apples is not totally overcome by aligning the stem axes in the direction of the diagonal. While this arrangement is substantially superior to the arrangement shown in FIG. 1, the problem is not totally overcome until the pockets are arranged as shown in FIG. 3 of the drawings. In this embodiment, the apples are further rotated until their transverse axes are aligned with one another and with the pitch center diagonal 38. In this position, the longitudinal axes 32 are disposed in a spaced parallel relationship. As will be apparent from FIG. 3 of the drawings, this arrangement of pockets provides the maximum clearance between adjacent apples.

FIG. 4 illustrates the principle involved in the arrangement of the pockets. The diagonal pitch distance AB of FIGS. 1, 2, 3 is compared with the sum of the distances OR OS in FIG. 1, OP CO in FIG. 2, ON ON in FIG. 3. The point 0 is the center of the apple pocket and the line NN is perpendicular to the axis of the apple passing through 0. The points R, P, N, O, S all lie on the circumference of the apple. We see that the angle RON is equal to the angle NOS as required in FIG. 1. By constructing a reference circle C with center at O and radius ON we see that OR OR ON and that OS OS ON and hence OR OS 2ON. Similarly OP OQ ON ON and hence it follows the orientation which places ON along the diagonal AB is the most favourable. It will be noted that FIG. 1 or the conventional orientation is close to the worst possible orientation for interference considerations. It will also be noted that there is a small region about the line ON, about i 10 where the sum of the corresponding distances does not differ significantly from 2 X ON. The

preferred orientation of the apple is an orientation such that the angle between the line segment ON and the diagonal pitch segment AB is less than or equal to 10.

In the embodiment of the present invention disclosed in FIGS. 5, 6, 7, 8 a single sheet of molded pulp material forms a packing tray 10 having a substantially rectangular peripheral configuration and including a plurality of downwardly dished article receiving pockets 12 and a plurality of downwardly inclined flattened areas 14. In the drawings the pockets 12 are constructed to have a maximum diameter in the direction of one diagonal line such as line L and substnatially smaller diameter in the direction of another diagonal line such as line M, both diagonals L and M passing through the centers of the pockets. Generally the article receiving pockets 12 are shaped to provide a maximum surface area contact with an average off-round article such as the Delicious variety of apple. This is achieved by dishing the pocket with substantially less curvature in the direction of line L than in the direction of line M, the two curvatures blending smoothly into one another.

Along the diagonals L and M and between adjacent pockets beam-like depressions 16 are constructed at approximately the midlevel of the vertical extent of the packing tray. This feature provides the necessary rigidity and strength in the interior area of the tray. Another series of beam-like depressions 18 extends parallel to and near the perimeter of the packing tray approximately at the same vertical level as the depressions 16. This stiffens the circumference of the tray which together with the interior strengthening features 16 provides enough rigidity that a fully loaded tray will not collapse and drop its load when lifted by the finger accommodating indentations 20.

In FIG. 6 of the preferred embodiment of this invention flattened planes 14 are disclosed which are joined at their intersection points by means of a ridge 22. The planes l4 slope downward from the ridge 22 at a dihedral angle 0 whose value lies between in the preferred embodiment to join smoothly with the surrounding pockets. Other sizes of apples can relax this condition on the dihedral angle. However, in all cases the dihedral angle should be no less than 120. The posts 24 formed by the continuations of neighbouring pockets, depressions l6 and flattened areas 14 extend vertically so that their tops lie in the same general plane as defined by the tops of the ridges 22. This serves to increase the effectiveness of the depressions 16.

The flattened areas 14 are positioned so as to provide a first contact for the article below the tray and enough surface area is supplied to the planes to ensure sufficient flexibility.

The tray illustrated in FIGS. 9 to 11 is identical to the trayv previously described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 4 of the drawings with the exception of the fact that the ridge 22 which divides the flattened area has been removed. The effect of removal of the ridge and the provision of a flattened area 26 may be likened to a structure wherein the dihedral angle is While this structure lacks the rigidity of the tray of FIG. 5, it provides increased flexibility in the area 26. Posts 28 lie in the same general plane as the posts 24 of FIG. 6 and serve the same function as posts 24 in that they serve to strengthen the structure.

Although the above description of a specific embodiment reveals the general nature of this invention, other modifications and adaptations such as ventilation holes are possible without departing from the generic concept of these disclosures and are, therefore, understood to be included within the scope of this invention.

What I claim as my invention is:

l. A molded packing tray having a plurality of downwardly dished article receiving pockets, disposed in rows and having a pitch center axis extending diagonally of said tray, each pocket being shortened and dished with a relatively steep curvature in a first horizontal direction and being elongated and dished with substantially less curvature in a second horizontal direction transverse to said first horizontal direction, the said first horizontal direction having an angle of inclination in the range of 0 to to said pitch center axis of said tray.

2. A molded tray as claimed in claim 1 wherein said angle of inclination is 10.

3. A molded tray as claimed in claim 1 wherein said angle of inclination is 0. j

4. A shallow molded packing tray as claimed in claim 1 having a plurality of support regions between the diagonal rows of pockets, said regions consisting of two flattened areas inclined downwardly and originating jointly from a central ridge portion, said ridge portion being generally parallel to one of said horizontal directions, said flattened areas forming an obtuse dihedral angle therebetween.

5. A molded packing tray as claimed in claim 4 wherein said obtuse angle is no less than 6. A molded packing tray as claimed in claim 5 wherein said obtuse angle is in the range of l40- 7. A shallow packing tray as claimed in claim 4 wherein said central ridge portion extends generally parallel to said first horizontal direction.

8. A shallow packing tray as claimed in claim 4 wherein said central ridge portion extends generally parallel to said second horizontal direction.

9. The molded packing tray ofclaim 1 wherein any two adjacent pockets are joined by reinforcing depressons.

10. The molded packing tray of claim 4 wherein a vent hole has been constructed at the midpoint of said central ridge portion.

11. A molded packing tray as claimed in claim I having a plurality of support regions disposed between the diagonal rows of pockets, each of said regions consisting of four upstanding posts disposed one at each corner of said region, and a flat flexible recessed web extending between said posts. 

1. A molded packing tray having a plurality of downwardly dished article receiving pockets, disposed in rows and having a pitch center axis extending diagonally of said tray, each pocket being shortened and dished with a relatively steep curvature in a first horizontal direction and being elongated and dished with substantially less curvature in a second horizontal direction transverse to said first horizontal direction, the said first horizontal direction having an angle of inclination in the range of 0* to 10* to said pitch center axis of said tray.
 2. A molded tray as claimed in claim 1 wherein said angle of inclination is 10*.
 3. A molded tray as claimed in claim 1 wherein said angle of inclination is 0*.
 4. A shallow molded packing tray as claimed in claim 1 having a plurality of support regions between the diagonal rows of pockets, said regions consisting of two flattened areas inclined downwardly and originating jointly from a central ridge portion, said ridge portion being generally parallel to one of said horizontal directions, said flattened areas forming an obtuse dihedral angle therebetween.
 5. A molded packing tray as claimed in claim 4 wherein said obtuse angle is no less than 120*.
 6. A molded packing tray as claimed in claim 5 wherein said obtuse angle is in the range of 140* - 160*.
 7. A shallow packing tray as claimed in claim 4 wherein said central ridge portion extends generally parallel to said first horizontal direction.
 8. A shallow packing tray as claimed in claim 4 wherein said central ridge portion extends generally parallel to said second horizontal direction.
 9. The molded packing tray of claim 1 wherein any two adjacent pockets are joined by reinforcing depressions.
 10. The molded packing tray of claim 4 wherein a vent hole has been constructed at the midpoint of said central ridge portion.
 11. A molded packing tray as claimed in claim 1 having a plurality of support regions disposed between the diagonal rows of pockets, each of said regions consisting of four upstanding posts disposed one at each corner of said region, and a flat flexible recessed web extending between said posts. 